


Estranged from Beauty—none can be

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Conversations, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Romance, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary and Henry discuss the Greens. Jed Foster is sure to make his opinion known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Estranged from Beauty—none can be

“It’s always so surprising, isn’t it, how different two sisters can be from each other?” Mary said and Henry Hopkins only nodded, indicating she should continue. 

They were sitting in the officers’ dining room, trying to enjoy what passed for coffee and sweet cakes at Mansion House, where everything had been in short supply for weeks; the coffee was half-chicory and the cakes were barely sweet with the last of the molasses. Dr. Hale had been called out to deal with an emergency since Jedediah had not yet finished the surgery he had undertaken late in the afternoon, but Mary was content; Samuel Diggs was assisting Jed, which meant the boy on the table had the very best chance of survival of anyone in the hospital, and Nurse Hastings had declared she would help Dr. Hale before he could even ask, so Hale’s patient now had even odds at least. Mary found Henry a very amiable companion and he often had observations or information about the men that proved invaluable. She had expected the chaplain to be an older man, a bit grizzled, fatherly perhaps, but Henry was a few years younger than Mary was herself and she hadn’t quite puzzled out how he came to be a chaplain instead of a fighting man, but she was grateful for him. He knew this because she was quite wonderfully direct and had told him of her expectations and appreciation, not extravagantly, as Foster might have laughingly done, but with sincerity and a kind of earnest purity Henry associated with New England womanhood.

“Everyone will notice how fair Miss Alice is and how dark Miss Green, but their features and graceful bearing are much the same. I should not have assumed that Miss Green’s younger sister would be similar to our ardent Confederate nurse, but of course, we all have our expectations, even without any evidence,” Mary added.

“I cannot say I have much acquaintance with the younger Miss Green, other than to see she is less serious than her sister, but she is the younger of them and has not had the experience Miss Green has here with us. I would enjoy your impressions, Nurse Mary,” Henry replied. 

He frankly thought Alice Green seemed like the flighty Southern belle all flounces and great, swinging hoopskirt they’d generally anticipated Emma would be, but Mary would be sure to make a more nuanced commentary. Jed Foster came in then and sat down across from Mary, still in his shirtsleeves from his late surgery, but it must have gone well as he was smiling and reclined comfortably in the armchair he’d chosen, just as if it were his parlor at home. Or perhaps he would have been more formal in the house his wife kept for him, but etiquette was relaxed at Mansion House and Henry thought Nurse Mary might look after Foster more carefully than the man’s wife ever had. Even now, she started to rise and Henry knew she meant to put together a plate of food for Foster, possibly with some little choice bit she’d saved before the dinner was served to make sure he had a better meal than just the last remnants of the supper, but Foster also saw her and quickly said,

“No, Nurse Mary, you needn’t, please don’t trouble yourself…I’ll have something later. I’d rather sit a while and listen to you and Chaplain talk about something that doesn’t have to do with an abruption or an arterial dissection. Or suture—it seems I’ve said that word so often it no longer means anything at all!”

She sat down again but Henry wondered how long she could manage it; she had that mother hen look she got and he knew she would not be satisfied until Foster had eaten his dinner, drunk his coffee, and made inroads on whatever sweet was left.

“If you’re sure, Dr. Foster… We were speaking of the Miss Greens, how very different they are. The elder we are familiar with, I believe we all know how compassionate and determined she is, even if none of us share her beliefs about the state of the Union or hopes for the outcome of this War. She is not fearful but not brazen and she appreciates the… gravity of the work we do here. I am afraid I cannot say the same for Miss Alice,” Mary said.

“She was a bit timid when she first arrived and I saw her hesitating before she would approach men, even those who called out for water or something else quite simple, but it wasn’t very long before she began flirting with the men, oh, quite gracefully, but not with the decorum of a lady or a nurse,” she added.

“Is it so very bad, for a sixteen year old to flirt then, Nurse Mary?” Foster asked, teasing her as he so liked to do. Henry thought there were times when she was purposefully grave or proper, to provide Foster with a ready subject for his wit.

“It is not a matter of being bad, but being seemly, of understanding that the men here are so very ill and injured, most of them, and that she could do so much more good if only she recognized that and turned her hand to it,” Mary replied.

“Well, perhaps with time, she’ll come to understand that,” Henry offered.

“I hope you are right, Mr. Hopkins, but I see no signs of it. She was most… intrigued when she observed the women lining up for my clinic and hung about for nearly an hour, idle, watching quite intently. And then, do you know what she said? She asked whether the women wore paint, which of course most of them do, so I told her yes and then, then she promptly asked me whether I wore paint as well! Truly!” Mary said, ending with an incredulous exclamation, her cheeks flushed bright red.

Henry had a moment, only a moment, of sneaking sympathy for Alice Green, whom he suspected was only trying to make a catty remark designed to upset their earnest Head Nurse, but who might be forgiven with the example Mary provided them as she spoke, her color high, her lashes dark against her fair skin. Before he could say something soothing or temporizing, Foster interrupted,

“Well, do you, Nurse Mary? Paint?” 

“Dr. Foster! Of course not! I can hardly believe you’d ask me that,” Mary said, her tone shocked and more than a little offended, her eyes very bright. 

Henry Hopkins choked back his laughter well enough that Mary didn’t notice but Foster did; Henry saw the sly, happy gleam in Foster’s dark eyes, the small smile that he was able to command away from his mouth but not his eyes and the man who had seemed dog-tired only a few minutes ago, from a long day, an emergency surgery and only the prospect of a cold, meager dinner, now was vital, vigorous and so very pleased with himself—and with Mary, Henry thought, most certainly he was pleased with Nurse Mary.

“It was an honest question… there’s nothing inherently wrong with ornamentation or we’d all dress like Quakers,” Foster said, quite mildly, a tone which Henry thought was also put on. “In Paris, it was not uncommon, in the salons, to see a bit of rouge, quite artfully applied, or I recall, some were fond of kohl, and no one batted an eye, pardon the pun. Is it that you consider it only the province of the prostitute, Nurse Mary?”

“I think we can agree that Alexandria is a far cry from Paris, Dr. Foster. And among the ladies of our society, that sort of… decoration is eschewed, it has the connotation of impropriety, of scandalous excess. I think you must agree it is a rather bold question for a young girl to ask the Head Nurse of a military hospital,” Mary said. Henry thought she tried to mask her enjoyment of her loftier position quite prettily, but she fooled neither him nor Foster.

“It does seem the times call for bold action,” Foster replied and Henry marveled at the man, how eager he was to challenge Mary, a strange sort of courtship between two who were barred from each other. “I recall quite vividly your arrival here, Baroness, and how…impetuously you threw yourself into the fray. Perhaps Miss Alice is more like you than her more circumspect sister. For the context is all—isn’t it? The paint on a prostitute’s mouth means something different than the rouge on the doyenne of a Parisian salon and is even further from the oils we revere by Raphael and Titian and Rembrandt—and yet, all paint,” he finished, with less teasing in his voice and more contemplative debate, if Jed Foster could ever be truly said to be contemplative. 

Mary was mollified, Henry saw, and, unlike many women, seemed to delight in the philosophical dispute Foster sought to engage her in. Neither was made for any battlefield but this whereas Henry he thought he himself, and Emma and possibly Alice too, would not shy from other forms of combat, the incitement to aggression and its physical brutality familiar to them all. He could not imagine a similar conversation with Emma, should he have the opportunity to sit with her in an evening, nursing cooling cups of coffee. This sparring would not be his preference and he thought she would not like it either. Alice was a mystery whose solution eluded him but did not interest him much and he hoped he would not rue his incuriosity.

“I would very much like to continue this discussion of relativity and absolutes, especially as it may pertain to the treatment of the women and the resources we are willing to devote to my clinic, but I won’t until I see you’ve had your supper—it’s not false modesty for me to admit that it will not improve with age and I prefer not to win my points only because my opponent is weak with hunger,” Mary announced and then rose to fetch Jed’s dinner. 

She’d had a smile for them both but Henry saw how his was gentle and sisterly, amused at herself and Jed, while Foster was bestowed a glance brilliant and more affectionate than Mary might wish another to have seen. Jed moved a little as Mary walked past, as if he would catch at her hand or her skirt with his hand, a thoughtlessly intimate touch he must have taken back at the last second. Henry kept his look neutral and Jed appeared to choose not to remark on the interaction. Henry waited a moment, to be sure Mary had left the room, then spoke,

“I think you might finish what she brings you before you start to argue with her again. She won’t be nearly so bothered if she knows you’ve had your supper.”

“I take your meaning, Mr. Hopkins—I shall not trouble our Nurse Mary any more tonight, though it is a sacrifice, I readily admit,” Foster said.

“I rather think she is your Nurse Mary and that is as bold as I will be. Good night, Foster,” Henry said, a little surprised at himself but not displeased, not when he saw the look on Jed Foster’s face. 

He knew that he had given the surgeon more to consider than whether Mary used paint or how Alice Green was as unlike Emma as meat from milk. Henry thought Mary would be back soon enough with a tray of food, some little delicacy she had hidden earlier just for this moment, laid on a plate; Jed would not truly know how much forethought and effort she’d put into the meal but he would likely be a little softer now with her, inquisitive without such sharpness, and more cognizant of how he might engage Mary to her benefit, and not his alone, Henry’s comment clarifying that what was between them was real, observable, a relative and an absolute at once.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this with the idea of Alice sassing/insulting Mary asking her if she wears make-up like the prostitutes and then sort of fleshed it out. It seemed like it wanted to be from Henry's point of view, so I abandoned my half-formed ideas of Jed telling Mary paint would only gild the lily with her. The title is from Emily Dickinson. I don't have a ton of historical data to back up my assertions about Parisiennes in the 1860s but it felt likely to be accurate, so I beg forgiveness, not permission :)


End file.
